Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday July 26, 2010 @03:09PM
from the blameless-travel dept.

War, earthquakes, and broken washers are all unavoidable events for which a carrier should not be liable if travel is delayed according to Southwest Airlines. Southwest quietly updated their act of God list a few weeks ago to include mechanical problems with the other horrors of an angry travel god. From the article: "Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst based in Port Washington, NY, called it 'surprising' that Southwest, which has a reputation for stellar customer service, would make a change that puts passengers at a legal disadvantage if an aircraft breakdown delays their travel. Keeping a fleet mechanically sound 'is certainly within the control of any airline,' Mann said. 'Putting mechanical issues in the same category as an act of God — I don't think that's what God intended.'"

"Thou shalt not bring liquids over 3 oz in thine carry-on luggage, for it is an abomination and potentially a bomb (anation).

Thou shalt remove thine shoes from thine feet, for thee art in a place of holy security, and also we want it to look like we learned something from that shoe bomber incident.

Thou shalt not bring hammers onto the plane, for in the face of a terrorist wielding a hammer all are paralyzed with fear and would not be able to stop him from hammering out the windows and depressurizing the cabin, causing extreme discomfort for all therein.

Thou shalt not question TSA rules, for they keep you safe so long as terrorists continue to be inconceivably stupid and incapable of lighting the bombs they hath smuggled aboard the airplane"

Pretty sure God works for TSA and doesn't take his job very seriously.

"First shalt thou take out the Holy ziploc bag, then shalt thou count to three ounces, no more, no less. Three shall be the number of ounces, and the number ounces shall be three. Four ounces shalt thou not bring, neither thou two ziploc bags, excepting that thou then proceed to check one. Five ounces is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then handest thou thy Holy ziploc bag to thy TSA screener, who being arbitrary in My sight, shall confiscate it anyway."

At one point in his career the Christian god was a carpenter who could turn water into wine at will. If he's like any of the carpenters I know that's a terrible combination. I'm thinking that there's a reason that the bible didn't mention his skill as a craftsman. Combine that with a slight grudge toward humanity over that whole brutally tortured to death thing and a difficultly with holding things like small screws and such and I might grab the next flight if he'd worked on it.

Hmm, you're also assuming they will have "spare" pilots in the hub cities ready-to-go at a moment's notice. And that the spare aircraft will always be ready-to-go at short notice, too. I'm sure there's significant costs associated with both of these. Even an idle airframe needs inspection before you can be sure it's safe to fly (and all the avionics, etc.). Then there's parking fees at airports, which are going to be pretty significant. So there's more costs involved than merely purchasing an extra couple of planes.

Fares may be in the hundreds of dollars, but flying a jet costs a lot more than running a bus.

Additionally, we're talking $50 million dollars plus to buy a 737, which is apparently most or all of Southwest's fleet (unusual for an airline - most would also have to grapple with the logistics of having multiple types of spare plane). And even assuming every ticket costs $500 and ALL of that goes to the airline as profit, you need to make 729 flights before you've paid off the initial investment. Assuming that there's no maintenance and staff and fuel costs, and that you bought the cheapest version of the plane. Clearly, the actual profit is nowhere near 100%.

Assuming a 10% profit margin on that $500 ticket (which seems awfully expensive and way more than your average one-way ticket is going to cost) - that's 1,000,000 tickets to pay for that $50 million plane, which works out to 7,299 fully-booked flights. At 7 flights per day, an aircraft will take 1,042 days to pay for itself. Assuming it's actually carrying full-fare paying passengers, and not sitting in a hangar somewhere.

So, I agree with your assessment that this would have to be mandated by the government. But I don't think most people would be willing to pay more for a ticket just for reducing the chance of a delayed/canceled flight. Because if they were, airlines would already be offering this to give themselves a competitive advantage.

Btw, your $5 extra per ticket, assuming it goes entirely to paying for the $50 million spare plane, would require nearly 73,000 fully-booked flights in order to pay off a single spare plane. If a plane makes 7 flights per day, they can recoup the costs for a single "spare" plane in a mere 28 plane-years!

A part failing is outside of human control. Whether or not you have spare parts on hand, however, is well within human control. Similarly, whether or not you have a spare plane to use while the first one is being repaired is also well within human control. The question of whether force majeure [wikipedia.org] or equivalent contract clauses should apply is not one of whether a failure could have been prevented, but rather whether the failed flight could reasonably have been prevented by having plans in place to handle equipment failures gracefully.

Failures are a part of doing business. The term "acts of God" is intended to protect only against failures that either cannot reasonably be foreseen (overthrow of a government, for example) or are so catastrophic that they cannot be dealt with when they do occur (a hurricane, for example). It is not intended to allow a company to not take responsibility for normal day-to-day failures. A competent, responsible company is expected to have contingency plans in place to deal with a reasonable number of normal day-to-day failures. If a company does not, it is inept and should be allowed to go bankrupt as quickly as possible so that more competent companies can take its place.

Remember that any delay caused by aircraft equipment failure could have been prevented with a single spare plane in the right location.

... probably figured that this might overcome their bags fly free policy while still remaining competitive. Marketing won't like it if this story gets any bigger, kudos to the Arizona Daily Star for breaking it.

Gary Kelly is a Bean Counter. He was CFO prior to being named to his current position and it's just a way that they don't have to book you on another airline or pay for overnight accommodations if they have a mechanical problem. From a marketing perspective this is an incentive to buy "Travel Insurance." Bah...

Tear jerking scenario aside (you might as well have tried the "Think of the children" route and made it a little girl holding a puppy with a bow in it's hair), no, if you are in an accident caused by a verifiable mechanical breakage than you are not going to be considered at fault.

Being legally at fault in a criminal matter though is a very different matter than claiming no fault in a Terms of Service document.

... once you start babbling about the effect of capricious supernatural sky fairies on mass transportation. What's the difference between a transistor burning out in a VOR receiver, versus a sudden hailstorm that shuts down the whole airport? Only a matter of scale.

Maybe the pilot and copilot are gay lovers, or maybe they had shrimp for lunch, or failed to say the correct prayers at the correct times, it seems from the relevant documentation anything pisses off those types.

It's a freaking figure of speech. Not one (Well, no one who matters) really thinks that divine beings actually take an interest in whether your plane takes off on time. The point is that "act of God" typically refer to matters outside the control of the airline, thus allowing them to make an valid argument that they can't be expected to pay for the result. Maintenance is well within the control of the airline and should not be considered under "acts of God" protection.

I agree, do they have an "acts of leprechauns" or "acts of gremlins" section too?

Even weather delays are often partly the airlines fault for not having enough spare capacity. I have been delayed more than once due to a weather issue at another airport thus delaying the plane I was supposed to board.

... once you start babbling about the effect of capricious supernatural sky fairies on mass transportation. What's the difference between a transistor burning out in a VOR receiver, versus a sudden hailstorm that shuts down the whole airport? Only a matter of scale.

None actually.

CFR 14, Part 25, Rule 25.1309.

(a) The equipment, systems, and installations whose functioning is required by this subchapter, must be designed to ensure that they perform their intended functions under any foreseeable operating condition. (1) The occurrence of any failure condition which would prevent the continued safe flight and landing of the airplane is extremely improbable, and
[(2) The occurrence of any other failure condition which would reduce the capability of the airplane or the ability of the crew to cope with adverse operating conditions is improbable.
[snip]
(g) In showing compliance with paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section with regard to the electrical system and equipment design and installation, critical environmental conditions must be considered.

Exceptions for acts of god makes sense. After all, should an airline be held responsible for the unknowable, infallible actions of our omnipotent creator?

Of course, they want notarized proof if your sick and need to change planes. I want Southwest to get a note from God that He authorized the act. Also, a xeroxed copy of His driver's license or passport proving His identity. And His signature, which must match the signature card from a local bank.

The story has already been debunked as the result of the deadly combination of a poorly worded contract, lazy reporting, and/or a confused Southwest spokesperson who commented on the initial report.

"Mechanical difficulties" refers those occurring at an airport or in the air traffic control system: For example, if a control tower has an outage which forces the closure of an airport; or if the fuel delivery system at an airport breaks down.

Those still seem like maintenance issues that the airline is responsible for as they rent those services to provide service to their customers. They in that case sure as hell should be refunding tickets and compensating travelers stuck in those closed airports. The airline should then seek relief from the airport under whatever contracts they have.

I pay the airline, and the airline pays the airport, the fuel service, etc. The airline owes me if they don't deliver me to my destination on time; if it is somebody else's fault, the airline can go after their suppliers, vendors, etc. to recoup their costs (presumably they have that type of thing in their contracts).

I pay the airline, and the airline pays the airport, the fuel service, etc. The airline owes me if they don't deliver me to my destination on time; if it is somebody else's fault, the airline can go after their suppliers, vendors, etc. to recoup their costs (presumably they have that type of thing in their contracts).

Yeah. If my rent is late, my landlord has an issue with me. It doesn't matter if I got paid, or if my paycheck bounced, or if it has been a slow quarter for sales of the new FooBar 2000. The landlord doesn't have to sue my boss, or the HR department, or the customers who aren't buying our product, or my company's landlord who took all their money for rent. My landlord only has a problem with me. I may then have to sue the company where I work in order to get compensation for the fact that my paycheck bounced and it resulted in my landlord suing me.

If the airport promised the airline a working tower, then the airline can sue them. If the airline promised me a flight, I can sue them. I really don't think we should have all these special aristocracy-style exceptions in the law for specific types of corporations. The airline could operate their own fueling hardware and invest in a backup tower if they didn't trust the existing infrastructure. The decision not to do that was by the management, and they sure as hell aren't deities. Regardless of what the law says.

That's right. However, those events in the contract were under a bigger umbrella of Force majeure [wikipedia.org] and not under Act of God [wikipedia.org]. GP is right - the contract was just poorly worded in a way that this was not clear.

This wasn't "lazy reporting" or a "reporting error", the plain wording of the contract was quite clear. If they meant "mechanical difficulties with things we don't own or operate", then they should have said so.

"Mechanical difficulties" refers those occurring at an airport or in the air traffic control system: For example, if a control tower has an outage which forces the closure of an airport; or if the fuel delivery system at an airport breaks down.

So, if the fleet of fuel trucks Southwest owns and keeps at an airport all break down, Southwest thinks they aren't liable?

With enough material sciences knowledge about how an object breaks down, and under what circumstances, I am surprised that any company can reasonably say that "We don't know why / when a part can break down suddenly" and let me sit you on the tarmac for who knows how many hours, while we replace what we should have in the first place.

...you should see their pilot training. Instead of learning correct operating procedure for an airplane and controlled airspace, their pilots are taught to shut their eyes and repeat "oh god! oh god! oh god!". Apparently this has allowed them to save a lot of money by combining training for their pilots and hosties.

Despite the FA headline, 'mechanical difficulties' is in fact NOT in an acts of God list. Rather, they added it to their list of 'Force Majeure' events, along with 'acts of God.' From their Contract of Carriage [southwest.com]:

Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control, including, without limitation, acts of God, meteorological events, such as storms, rain, wind, fire, fog, flooding, earthquakes, haze, volcanic eruption or any other event, including, without limitation, government action, disturbances or potentially volatile international conditions, civil commotions, riots, embargoes, wars, or hostilities, whether actual, threatened, or reported, strikes, work stoppage, slowdown, lockout or any other labor related dispute involving or affecting Carrier’s service, mechanical difficulties, Air Traffic Control, the inability to obtain fuel, labor or landing facilities for the flight in question or any fact not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted by Carrier.

Likewise, the body of the FA correctly states that both mechanical difficulties and acts of God are in the same list. Of course, that doesn't make for such an eye-grabbing headline...

This seems like a ploy to be able to skimp on maintenance people and stores of replacement parts. After all, if mechanical difficulties is on their "Act of God" list, they don't need to rush to repair the plane, so they can just keep a few of the most common parts and some mechanics at a few central locations, and then fly them out to where they're needed. Ran out of parts and available mechanics? Too bad. God shouldn't have broken the plane.

This is lazy reporting, nothing more. If the AZ Star et al. had bothered to talk to Southwest [elliott.org] about it, they might have gotten a clue. It is a sensationalist headline to draw eyeballs and gin up controversy where there is none.

In our latest update, we offered our definition, which states that “Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control” and so the “mechanical difficulties” we are referring to as Force Majeure events would be those outside of our control, such as airport mechanical difficulties (e.g., the airport de-icing system breaks) or Air Traffic Control issues (e.g., airport or regional tower goes down).

We are not referring to our own aircraft mechanical difficulties, which would clearly be under our control. Our policies and practices confirm this interpretation.

None of our procedures have changed — we still accommodate customers exactly the same as we did previously in the event of our own aircraft mechanical issues occur.

- Offered me two (2) packages of peanuts as a snack, and two packages of cookies as well.

- Had room for my bags in both directions.

The last time I flew Delta (July 2010) they:

- Would not let me change seats online.

- Would not tell me my seat assignment on the commuter segments until after boarding, so that 'passengers with special needs could be accomodated'. They seated three standby passengers before me on one flight

A washer mysteriously disappearing because God wills a plane full of evil people to crash is an Act of God.A washer breaking and plane crashing because Southwest elected to buy cheaper and, hence, poorer quality washers is not an Act of God.